Ethical policy

The Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement of the Journal Ontology of Designing is based on Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for editors developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

We strive to guarantee the quality of journal publications and follow the principle according to which the publisher bears the main responsibility for the integrity of scholarly publications. We do our best to help editors-in-chief, editors, and peer reviewers follow ethical standards accepted by major publishers and providers of scientific information. Adherence to standards is necessary to maintain high quality of scholarly publications, public trust in the results of scientific research, and author recognition.

It is necessary to exclude falsification, plagiarism and self-plagiarism, duplicate submissions, multiple copying of similar information in different research papers, false authorship, and misrepresentation with respect to authors’ impact on their publications. Authors must be honest in presenting their results and conclusions of their research. Research misconduct is a harmful for knowledge. 

All those who have made a significant contribution should be given chance to be cited as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the work should be acknowledged. Articles should include a full list of the current institutional affiliations of all authors, both academic and corporate.

Reproducing text from other papers without properly crediting the source (plagiarism) or producing many papers with almost the same content by the same authors (self-plagiarism) is not acceptable. Submitting the same results to more than one journal concurrently is unethical. Exceptions are the review articles. Authors may not present results obtained by others as if they were their own. Authors should acknowledge the work of others used in their research and cite publications that have influenced the direction and course of their study.

Editors, authors, and peer reviewers must report about their interests that may affect their fairness when submitting, editing, and reviewing manuscripts (conflict of interests). These may be financial, personal, political, religious, and intellectual. Peer reviewing must be objective.

Editors responsibilities:

• Publication decision. All publication decisions are made by the journal’s Editors on the basis of the referees’ reports and with reference only to the manuscript’s importance, originality and clarity, and its relevance to the journal. The editors may be guided by the policies of the journal’s editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editors may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
• Fair play. An editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
• The submitted manuscripts must be handled in a confidential manner, with no details being disclosed to anyone, with the exception of the reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, without the permission of the author, until a decision has been taken as to whether the manuscript is to be published.
• Disclosure and Conflicts of interest.Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Editors must made known any conflicts of interest that might arise. Specifically, in cases where an editor is an author of a submitted manuscript, the manuscript must be passed to another editor for independent peer review.
• Corrections. An editor presented with convincing evidence that the substance or conclusions of a published paper are erroneous should coordinate with the publisher to promote the prompt publication of a correction (or erratum), retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant. An editor should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper. Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made, but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies.

Reviewers responsibilities:

• Contribution to Editorial Decisions. Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.
• Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.
• Confidentiality. Any received manuscripts must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorised by the editor.
• Acknowledgement of Sources. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also inform the editor of any similarity between the submitted manuscript and another either published or under consideration by another journal to the best of their knowledge.
• Reviews should be conducted objectively and in a timely fashion. Reviewers should not make personal criticism in their review and should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. Reviewers must alert the editor if a manuscript contains plagiarized material or falsified data to the best of their knowledge.
• Disclosure and Conflict of Interest. Referees must return the manuscript without review to the editor if there is a conflict of interest. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties of Authors:

• Reporting standards.  Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
• Data Access and Retention.Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
• Originality and Plagiarism.The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
• Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication.An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal of primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
• Acknowledgement of Sources.Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.
• Authorshipshould be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution or interpretation of the research study. All those who have made significant contributions should be offered the opportunity to be listed as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the study should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. Every coauthor should have the opportunity to review the manuscript before its submission. All coauthors have an obligation to provide prompt retractions or correction of errors in published works. Any individual unwilling or unable to accept appropriate responsibility for a paper should not be a coauthor. All collaborators share some degree of responsibility for any paper they coauthor. While not all coauthors may be familiar with all aspects of the research presented in their paper, all collaborations should have in place an appropriate process for reviewing and ensuring the accuracy and validity of the reported results, and all coauthors should be aware of this process. Collaborations are expected to have a process to archive and verify the research record; to facilitate internal communication and allow all authors to be fully aware of the entire work; and respond to questions concerning the joint work and enable other responsible scientists to share the data. All members of a collaboration should be familiar with, and understand, the process.
• Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest.All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.